Search results for "agricultural and biological sciences"
showing 10 items of 1704 documents
Biocompatible Lipid Nanoparticles as Carriers to Improve Curcumin Efficacy in Ovarian Cancer Treatment
2017
Curcumin is a natural molecule with proved anticancer efficacy on several human cancer cell lines. However, its clinical application has been limited due to its poor bioavailability. Nanocarrier-based drug delivery approaches could make curcumin dispersible in aqueous media, thus overtaking the limits of its low solubility. The aim of this study was to increase the bioavailability and the antitumoral activity of curcumin, by entrapping it into nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs). For this purpose here we describe the preparation and characterization of three kinds of curcumin-loaded NLCs. The nanosystems allowed the achievement of a controlled release of curcumin, the amounts of curcumin r…
Negative emotional state slows down movement speed : behavioral and neural evidence
2019
Background Athletic performance is affected by emotional state. Athletes may underperform in competition due to poor emotion regulation. Movement speed plays an important role in many competition events. Flexible control of movement speed is critical for effective athletic performance. Although behavioral evidence showed that negative emotion can influence movement speed, the nature of the relationship remains controversial. Thus, the present study investigated how negative emotion affects movement speed and the neural mechanism underlying the interaction between emotion processing and movement control. Methods The present study combined electroencephalography (EEG) technology with a cued-…
Clinical and Sociodemographic Variables and the Level of Social Support in People with Multiple Sclerosis
2019
Wstęp. Stwardnienie rozsiane (SM) jest przewlekłą, postępującą neurologiczną chorobą, która może prowadzić do znacznej niepełnosprawności. Istotnym zasobem w radzeniu sobie z SM i innymi chorobami przewlekłymi jest wsparcie społeczne.Cel. Celem badań było określenie związku pomiędzy zmiennymi klinicznymi i socjodemograficznymi a wsparciem społecznym u osób z SM.Materiał i metody. W badaniu wykorzystano Rozszerzoną Skalę Niewydolności Ruchowej (EDSS), Skalę Niepełnosprawności Neurologicznej Szpitala Guy (GNDS) oraz Berlińskie Skale Wsparcia Społecznego Grupę badaną stanowiło 137 osób ze zdiagnozowanym SM.Wyniki. Spostrzegane wsparcie społeczne nie jest powiązane ze zmiennymi klinicznymi, tak…
Digital control circuitry for the p53 dynamics in cancer cell and apoptosis
2010
Abstract Experimental work and theoretical models deduce a “digital” response of the p53 transcription factor when genomic integrity is damaged. The mutual influence of p53 and its antagonist, the Mdm2 oncogene, is closed in a feedback. This paper proposes an aerospace-based architecture for translating the p53/Mdm2/DNA damage network into a digital circuitry in which the optimal control theory is applied for obtaining the requested dynamic evolutions of some considered cell species for repairing a DNA damage. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of such digital circuitry design to detect and predict the cell species dynamics for shedding light on their inner and mutua…
Fight evolution with evolution: plasmid‐dependent phages with a wide host range prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance
2013
The emergence of pathogenic bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics is a serious worldwide public health concern. Whenever antibiotics are applied, the genes encoding for antibiotic resistance are selected for within bacterial populations. This has led to the prevalence of conjugative plasmids that carry resistance genes and can transfer themselves between diverse bacterial groups. In this study, we investigated whether it is feasible to attempt to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistances with a lytic bacteriophage, which can replicate in a wide range of gram‐negative bacteria harbouring conjugative drug resistance–conferring plasmids. The counter‐selection against the plasmid was sh…
In Vitro Cytotoxic Effect of Aqueous Extracts from Leaves and Rhizomes of the Seagrass Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile on HepG2 Liver Cancer Cells: Fo…
2023
Aqueous extracts from Posidonia oceanica’s green and brown (beached) leaves and rhizomes were prepared, submitted to phenolic compound and proteomic analysis, and examined for their potential cytotoxic effect on HepG2 liver cancer cells in culture. The chosen endpoints related to survival and death were cell viability and locomotory behavior, cell-cycle analysis, apoptosis and autophagy, mitochondrial membrane polarization, and cell redox state. Here, we show that 24 h exposure to both green-leaf- and rhizome-derived extracts decreased tumor cell number in a dose–response manner, with a mean half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) estimated at 83 and 11.5 μg of dry extract/mL, respecti…
The effect of inbreeding rate on fitness, inbreeding depression and heterosis over a range of inbreeding coefficients
2014
Understanding the effects of inbreeding and genetic drift within populations and hybridization between genetically differentiated populations is important for many basic and applied questions in ecology and evolutionary biology. The magnitudes and even the directions of these effects can be influenced by various factors, especially by the current and historical population size (i.e. inbreeding rate). Using Drosophila littoralis as a model species, we studied the effect of inbreeding rate over a range of inbreeding levels on (i) mean fitness of a population (relative to that of an outbred control population), (ii) within‐population inbreeding depression (reduction in fitness of offspring fro…
Hard to catch: Experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry
2021
Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey, but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar to classical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism' may also lead to convergence in warning colours, known as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry areAdelphabutterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkable colour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naive blue tits to learn to avoid and generalizeAdelphawing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with distast…
Antitumor Effect of Cabozantinib in Bone Metastatic Models of Renal Cell Carcinoma
2021
Background: The presence of bone metastases in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) negatively affects patients’ survival. Data from clinical trials has highlighted a significant benefit of cabozantinib in bone metastatic RCC patients. Here, we evaluated the antitumor effect of cabozantinib in coculture models of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and osteoblasts (OBs) to investigate whether and how its antiproliferative activity is influenced by OBs. Methods: Bone/RCC models were generated, coculturing green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged Caki-1 and 786-O cells with human primary OBs in a “cell–cell contact” system. RCC proliferation and the OB molecular profile were evaluated after the cabozantinib treat…
The circular economy for resilience of the agricultural landscape and promotion of the sustainable agriculture and food systems
2022
The agricultural landscape is a public good to be preserved for long-term socio-economic and environmental effects. The agricultural landscape is preserved by the carrying out of agricultural activities. Through a empirical survey we examined how some young farmers in the countryside adopt conservation and resilience strategies. A common feature of the case studies examined is the adoption of photovoltaic energy production necessary for the performance of business activities. The method applied is that of the opportunity cost. The results of the research show that young farmers after graduation have returned to agriculture as they have an advantage in terms of opportunity costs compared to …